Friday, October 5, 2007

FTP, for a while now, has had $26 and $75 satellite tokens you can win in some tournaments. They're good for any tournament of any kind with the given buy-in amount. I haven't been too hot on them in the past, since they're usually available in tournaments with fairly low percentage payouts - usually you have to win the thing outright.

Well, I've discovered a pair of satellites in the structure that are much, much better. They are 18 handed, but pay out the top 6 players (though 6th place gets cash). That's 30% - certainly doable. In fact, I won a $26 token last night. Tonight I will try and parley that to a $75 token. Once there, there is a $69+$6 satellite into the $200+$16 $750,000 guarantee tournament on Sunday. At the moment, that tournament will pay over $130,000 to first place. For a total cash investment of $8.70!

The one thing that's odd about satellite tournaments at FTP is that once you get to the point in the prize structure where everybody gets the same thing, they should just end the tournament, because any further play is moot. They don't, though. I guess they figure people are going to want to play it out for pride. The trouble with that idea is that a large fraction of the table all simply goes all-in with any two cards just to get it over with. I did and lost 3 hands in a row, coming in, officially, in 4th place. But who cares? 5th through 1st were all the same. So if you want to stick around to collect first for pride, it's meaningless since you're going to play it against people who have nothing to lose or gain. Like play-money tournaments. Why waste your time?